Mix it Up...

An Accommodating Curve   watercolor/gouache   27 x 14

These days, I am quite drawn to mixed media paintings....they offer more surprises than works that are more pure.  When I first joined my local art organization many years ago, those who painted with watercolor were teased with, "When are you gonna use REAL paint?", jokingly (?) meant to acknowledge the supposed superiority of oils.  This whole notion, in fact, smacks of a REAL MAN society....and I really don't wanna go there.  I would like to think that mixed media works are now mirroring the multicultural aspect of our society and our world.  We taste and sample foods and products from all over the world. I, for one, find this to be very stimulating.  I did a turn at gallery sitting last week at Summit Artspace gallery and found that I am quite taken with the work of Sean O'Donnell, a young painting student at the University of Akron.  His use of pencil and small bits of folded paper affixed to the canvas are novel and offer interest and novelty.  Why then, do we hesitate to add another medium, as if we are tainting the pure?  I am not sure.

Many years ago, I did lots of watercolor work on top of a gouache under-painting.  It changed the quality of the strokes and added a milky quality to the paint.  "An Accommodating Curve" is an example.  When I took this painting to critique, the leader was visually confused as to the medium.  It looked a bit like oil, a bit like pastel.  Whatever.  His comment made me happy.  

I look forward to the day that we don't have to check-mark our supposedly "pure" race on applications of all sorts.  I really don't like purity all that much.

Mother Love=Art Love

An Accommodating Curve   watercolor/gouache   27 x  14

Being an artist is tough. Being a woman is tough. Being a mother is sometimes tough, but fills us with a love so great, so big, that it can easily spill over into our art-making. I was blessed with three wonderful sons.....I really do believe that my art-making is so much richer from that deep communion. Just as a great writer uses his life experiences to season his writing, we visual artists do the same. As more and more women are making art, I am seeing the vastness of the experiences that women artists have to offer. Our intuition and our emotions play out in our work. Mother's Day, in my opinion, should also be a celebration of our children, and all that they have given to us. Our curves carry groceries and laundry, as well as art supplies. Our curves sustain our children. My love for these organic curves shows in my work. Hip...hip...hooray! Andrew Wyeth said, "One's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes". "An Accommodating Curve" was painted many years ago.....watercolor over gouache.

Accommodation

An Accommodating Curve   watercolor/gouache   27 x 14

I am happy with my role as an artist. I am also happy to be woman. One of the qualities associated with yin is the notion of flexibility. That opposes rigidity, to be sure. Because a woman's life is composed of so much rigidity with so many details to tend to and so much nurturing to provide, I think that women who release themselves in creative endeavors are able to relinquish control and discover a complete freedom. Those artists who I admire (many of them men) have been able to marry the yin with the yang....the freedom with the control....and the traditional with the modern. These are the artists who continually question and search. (as opposed to rigid artists who seem to know all of the answers). Right now, I visualize sea grasses bending in the wind....flexible and strong.